Senate likely to back Cha-cha — Pimentel

The Senate is likely to support the Charter change (Cha-cha) initiative of President Arroyo and her allies in the House of Representatives, opposition Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said yesterday.

He said while the smaller chamber of Congress blunted the renewed move of the House last year to amend the Constitution, there will now be less resistance among senators to Cha-cha.

In fact, he said he believes that Cha-cha proponents can muster bipartisan support in the Senate for their initiative.

Pimentel is supporting Mrs. Arroyo’s proposal to amend the Charter to shift the form of government to the federal system, which the Mindanao senator has long been advocating. The President is for a mixed parliamentary-federal type of government.

Pimentel said he sees no problem as far as support for the President’s initiative among administration senators, particularly the neophytes, is concerned.

As for the opposition, he said in addition to him, there are others who are for amending the Constitution. He did not name his pro-Cha-cha opposition colleagues.

When Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. and other congressmen were actively pursuing Cha-cha a year before last May’s elections, they were counting on Sen. Edgardo Angara to carry the ball for them in the Senate.

Angara chairs the committee on constitutional reforms and while he is for Charter change, he, like Pimentel, wants that a constitutional convention be elected to propose amendments to the Constitution.

This is also the mode recommended by Senate President Pro Tempore Juan Flavier, who has introduced a bill calling for Cha-cha through the election of a constitutional convention.

While senators may now support Charter reforms, they still disagree on what mode to use in effecting such changes.

Sen. Ralph Recto, who has supported most administration initiatives, said constitutional change, which is touted to solve part of the problems the nation is facing, would cost taxpayers billion of pesos if an elected convention would do it.

He said the election alone of convention delegates would cost about P700 million, while a plebiscite to ratify the amendments would entail another P700 million.

He said the operational expenses of a convention can run to hundreds of millions, if not billions, if the body takes a year or longer to do its job.

"The delegates will have to rent offices, organize a secretariat, hire their respective staff, purchase office equipment and supplies, and incur other expenses," he added.

Recto pointed out that the delegates’ salaries would already run to tens of millions a month.

"At a basic salary of P35,000, the same as that of a congressman or a senator, monthly salaries for 300 delegates will cost P10.5 million and P17.5 million for 500 delegates, he added.

There have been proposals that at least two delegates be elected from each of the country’s more than 200 congressional districts.

Recto said if these are the kinds of expenses that would be incurred in effecting constitutional reforms through a convention, then the proposed cure to some of the nation’s ills would in fact cause more problems.

"It will definitely add to our ballooning budget deficit," he stressed.

To obviate the huge cost involved in the convention mode, De Venecia and his House colleagues are proposing that Cha-cha be done by Congress itself convening as a constituent assembly.

They argue that this mode would save the government a lot of expenses, including those for salaries of delegates, secretariat and personnel, and office space.

Under their plan, Congress can divide its time as a law-making body and as a constituent assembly, and can use its own secretariat and personnel and its existing offices for its Charter rewriting task.

Lawmakers won’t be suspected of being driven by self-interest if Cha-cha takes place during the first year of their term since they are just newly elected.